Without any training in film or professional equipment, one young filmmaker has had his work selected in film festivals all over the world.

Although he’s never been able to afford professional film equipment, that didn’t stop Dylan Montalbo, 20, of Tumon from pursuing his dreams as a filmmaker.

“I’ve never actually held a camera in all my years of doing this dream career of mine,” he said. “When I was a kid, the only way I practiced filmmaking was with my mobile phone. I used Nokia and Motorola flip phones at the time, to try to practice.”

Montalbo began recording short videos with his phone when he was around 11 years old.

When he was in high school, he got his first smartphone, the iPhone 5c. He didn’t have a computer to edit his short films on either, so he had to edit them on his phone.

Montalbo began submitting films to the Guam International Film Festival in 2014, when he was a freshman at Father Duenas Memorial School. He made his short film entirely with his iPhone.

“The iPhone actually has a lot of good apps for filmmaking, like iMovie or iMovie Pro,” he said. “Some of the apps I use to edit now, I had to wait until they were on sale so I could even buy them.”

His work wasn’t selected for the film festival the first time, but Montalbo kept trying.

“There weren’t a lot of high schoolers doing film at the time, and I was so wet behind the ears, not really focused,” he said. “I didn’t have techniques, I didn’t go to film school, I mostly relied on what I saw in films.”

In 2016, Montalbo's film “The Virgin Flower” won second place at the University of Guam Film Festival, along with a $600 prize. The short film was also selected for the 2016 Guam International Film Festival, where it was nominated for the “Best Made in the Marianas” award. He shot and edited it entirely on his iPhone, while he was a junior in high school.

“I was the only high school student there,” he said. “Most people there were already film veterans, students of local filmmakers like Kel and Don Muña — I was going up against their students.”

The local festival helped the teen grow as a filmmaker.

“I owe it a lot to the Guam International Film Festival because it was the first place I got a spotlight on myself,” he said. “I have to give a shout out to the Muña brothers for starting the film festival. I wish they had started it out a lot earlier when I was still younger, but it was still a pleasure to be a part of it.”

Montalbo said he appreciated the chance to speak to the audience when his film was selected.

“You get to watch all these people watch your work and enjoy it, and have that connection with them,” he said. “It’s always a pleasure to hear their insight, and transition from being the consumer to the producer.”

His work has also been selected at film festivals in the mainland U.S., France, Spain, and Russia, Montalbo said.

"The Virgin Flower"

Inspired by claymation films he loved as a kid, like “Wallace and Gromit” and “Shaun the Sheep,” Montalbo made a claymation stop motion film of his own.

“It took me about five months. It should’ve taken me half the time, but it took me way longer because I didn’t have experience,” Montalbo said.

Even though he was a teenager when he created it, “The Virgin Flower” is graphic, mature and nuanced.

One of Montalbo’s strongest influences in film is Quentin Tarantino, whom he admires for his graphic style and blending of eastern and western cultures.

“Growing up I was actually attracted to a lot of films, like Tarantino’s, heavily driven by artistic value rather than having a lot of plot or substance,” Montalbo said.

'Old school'

With graphic effects technology becoming more advanced in film every year, Montalbo still prefers making everything in his projects by hand.

Montalbo was drawn to handmade visual effects from a young age, by watching horror films with his dad, Dino Montalbo.

The young filmmaker moved to Guam from the Philippines when he was 11 years old, so he relied heavily on watching films in English as a way of learning the language better.

“As a kid, I didn’t watch ‘Dora the Explorer’ or ‘Spongebob’ — I looked to dramatic films to learn English,” he said. “My dad and I shared a connection in watching a lot of my dad’s childhood favorite horror films. I asked my dad lots of questions about how they did those effects — I didn’t know it wasn’t CGI, and they were made before CGI existed.”

Horror films from the 1980s like “The Evil Dead” and “The Thing” inspired him to create handmade effects with blood and violence in his own work, like in “The Virgin Flower.”

Montalbo also draws much of his inspiration from filmmaker Robert Rodriguez.

“He was called the one-man film crew,” Montalbo said. “Just like Rodriguez, I like to organize and conduct everything with film according to how I want to do it rather than rely on others. Almost everything that I do, I write, I shoot, I plan by myself. I’m more of an old school artist.”

Montalbo is in his first year at Kapiolani Community College in Hawaii, and plans to get a degree in engineering.

Despite his busy school schedule, he still makes film a priority. He’s now working on an animation horror film set at his alma mater, Father Duenas Memorial School, which he hopes to submit to the next Guam International Film Festival.